Hi, I just saw your game on kickstarter and I am worried about something, primarily because of your promotional art.

I really hate females in any game because it totally breaks the immersion, it's like being forced in real life to cross-dress. I never even considered buying Tomb Raider because of that.

So, will any class, ability, quest or anything at all be gender locked?
I don't even want to be forced to have a female companion.

Whole story concept is about a male and female apprentices, so it is an essential part of a story. You will have one male and one female charachter to role-play simultaneously.

Also, i don't really quite understand you attitude toward a female charachters, why you hate them

Oh crap, that's really bad news, pretty much ruined it for me.

I really wish developers would stop pandering to vulgar sexuality and heteronormativity already.
Overwhelming majority of gamers are male and only 18% played as female Shepard in Mass Effect 3, which was the most mainstream marketed game ever. Can't they take a hint from raw data already?

P.S.
I quite clearly explained why I hate them in the opening post, can't you read?

Larian has just said on the Kickstarter comments that they are going to try and work on having two characters of the same gender as the player characters.

But it will not kill you to play as a woman. I'm a man and I have played a female character in many an RPG, and I while playing, not once have I ever felt the urge to braid my hair and listen to boy bands.


I'll probably stick to the male-female pairing for all my playthroughs, but if Larian does implement same-gender pairings, I hope they take that into account for the endings. I can't imagine how people too uptight to play a girl would react if they get the maximum affinity option and are forced into being gay lovers!

EDIT: To clarify, I hope that the maximum affinity ending allows you to choose whether you meant best friends or lovers, regardless of gender.

Yes, but I don't understand the animosity it self, if you understand me

It is not that we role-play random costum made charachters and you are forsed to play only females. This is a story about two particular charachters, which happen to be male and female.

I think that the idea of the player being directly identified with his/her alter ego in the game is, simply put, false.

So, you have a problem identifying yourself with a woman but not a single one with a character who kills people, monsters, and is capable of casting blizzards?

The relation between players and game characters is not as much identification as mere control.

Long history short: I think you simply have some kind of prejudice.

Take a hint from the raw data? You already mentioned Tomb Raider, while you may not play it, it is one of the most popular franchise's ever, so from that "raw data" forced female characters don't sound terrible.

Also 18% is not insignificant, if those 18% of gamers decided not to play the game because they had to be male that would be a lot of sales losses. And Mass Effect is very mainstream and has a different target audience. Perhaps an fantasy RPG would be a better comparison. 54% of hardcore Diablo III players chose a female character (source) so going by "raw data" it would be ridiculous to not allow them.

I know your argument is not to force them rather than disallow them completely but your data argument is flawed. And when you've two characters I don't think it's that bad, you can still focus on the male one.

Jesus
f
Christ

First sexism (dumbed aesthetics), now this (dumbed down, genderless dialogues for main character? what else?). I wish Larian had guts to shoo away such people, they are like crows feasting on game, tearing it apart and making it mediocre, "politically correct, taking away everything that makes core idea and setting unique, interesting, well-thought developed.

Sometimes, being TOO open with fans causes more damage then advantage. Who gave these people idea that if you are a backer you can DICTATE how developers should make THEIR game? I wonder if they even know that game is pretty much made and would be released even without KS.

I'm losing fate aready.

Have you played the game already?! Surely the entire story and gameplay mechanics are automatically ruined since there's a woman in your PARTY of protagonists.

And it doesn't mean that you're a dude you're only going to play games which star male protagonists. Do we really have to sum up some of the great games which feature female protagonists?

Of course there aren't THAT many, mostly because of the likes of you who aren't open-minded enough to even take a look at a game which differs from their pre-set demands for games in general. I applaud Larian and other devs who try and mix things up a bit.

I, for one, am sick of seeing a Marcus Phoenix, Kratos and Sam freaking Fisher bald headed tough guys claiming the shelves of video game stores.


(Disclaimer: I don't hate balding male protagonists. There's just been too many of them in recent years)

Sex/gender doesn't have any affect on the decisions I would make as myself and I believe playing as a character of different sex/gender doesn't really affect your identity or personality. I can understand if you have a preference although not wanting to specifically ever play a female is beyond me. That being said, I am not 100% sure but I think with AI you only will only have to control one character.

My main guess that only 18% of people played female on ME3 is because they played the 1st and 2nd one with a male character (since you did not have a choice there). And people get attached, or it would break character changing sex suddenly after playing male for 50 hours or so.

You know there were similar issues with King bounty; in the first game you are a guy and some gals complain; then in the second game you are a gal and some guys complain and now in the third game you are a guy and some gals complain.
-
To be honest no matter what you do someone somewhere will complain. The thing is that if you are not complaining then the issue is minor but to the person who is complaining perhaps it is not so minor (I really can't tell because this is not an area I complain about). I do kind of hope that Larian does not nurf the humour and text due to this change but perhaps they have some clever trick up their sleves or perhaps they spend money creating two completely different set of texts based on gender of the person - i don't know what they have planned here but perhaps they will tell us and then we will know.

This aspect is not true; you can play either male or female in ME1 and ME2. I know because having purchased ME3 recently I am replaying ME1 and ME2 so I can remember the story before ME3 and I am playing a different gender than I did the previous time (I can also say now that I am 20% into ME2 that ME1 is more fun with regards to game mechanics; even if ME2 is prettier but that is a different topic).

I don't know why we even discuss about such a trivial thing. If the game delivers first class quality when it comes to story, background lore, humor, design of the world and areas, have a tons of interesting quest, items and npc.. then neither I, neither do enyone should give a f*ck if we control even a goddamn transexual shemale orc who also did a bleaching treatment because he/she wants to be a human.

I think in cdprojek new game they actually have one of those though I'm not sure if you get to control her.

Games are interactive entertainment, interactivity entails relatability. Different gender breaks away from that.
You could have already guessed it from 90% of games, the reason they have a male protagonist is that 90% of consumers of such entertainment are male.

This is really basic stuff people.

P.S.
Diablo 2 had gender locked classes and since Sorceress was the only mage of course people who wanted to play as mage were forced to do so. I myself didn't because it was, like I said, too immersion breaking.
There is nothing more basic than gender identity.

So a male magic user is perfectly relatable, despite the very premise of the magic in question being impossible, but if there are any feminine characteristics to an inch high avatar on your computer screen, that just defies any possibility of playing with that character. You can not even have a male inch high main character standing next to a female inch high party member / mercenary? It is not relatable that you could possibly work with a female?


I played a female character in Divinity 2 because I didn't really care for any of the male voices (while one female voice was good). I showed my brother the game, and when he saw me playing briefly some time later (with a few armour upgrades) he thought I had started over with a male character.

Good lord you trying so hard that it looks like you are not even trying properly.
2/10 made me reply twice.

Most people can manage to keep their gender identity intact even when playing as a character not of their own gender. This is why no one is understanding what your problem is.

You seem to have a problem separating yourself from a fictional mass of polygons. If your sense of identity is so fragile that you are unable to play otherwise good games because there might *GASP* be a GIRL in them, that is your own problem.




Seriously? Are you so hung up on this that you can't even play as the male if it means fictional interactions with a fictional female character?

Probably stating the obvious, but, it seems niceanold trolling to me.

I mean, it's pretty ridiculous.

And being able to control the actions of your party isn't immersion breaking? If you think about it any turn based game or game that gives you control over multiple characters can be argued as immersion breaking. The world operates in real time, and you can only control yourself, which is quite contrary to some games. Also RTS games have nothing people can relate to unless they were some general in the army, and even then generals won't relate to the fact their troops are replaced minutes after their previous units have perished. Most RTSs don't acknowledge gender either, and specifically say "Spend blah to train blah at blah. Blah is weak against blah, but are strong against blah. Their special ability is that they can blah."

You are the only person I have ever heard of to complain about an inclusion of a female PARTY member in a party based rpg. Even in Mass Effect you're forced to customize your female squad members along with their skills. Granted you weren't forced to make the character at the start of the game, but you were still forced to accept them into the squad.

If you have such a problem with the whole situation then:
A) don't continue arguing on the forums and leave, as the chance for your wish to remove the female protagonist will not come true, as the same sex alternative still involves you to control another main character's interactions. Divinity is attempting to put a twist to the norm of RPGs by having two main characters whose fates are parallel and intertwined, and if you don't like it, go play Skyrim. No one will miss you.

B) roleplay as the male character, which is what I plan on doing. Think of the female character as your vision of the perfect woman and use that as an excuse of covering her existence up.

C) don't role play at all and consider yourself more of a tactician or a narrator for the story

Personally I like the option to choose gender, because I wanted to play as it coming, but the second changing roles (the male resurrected and the female released from the prison). It is only a preference, not a condition. Also this game has a toolset, so there will be tons of mods to customize characters in any possible way!


I think this discussion has no point rather some kind of prejudice.

Female character doesn’t breaks any immersion more than you killing thousands of enemies and survive, there are no chance that someone can survive enough battles, no matter how strong he/she be, kill after kill breaks any immersion more than any other thing in a game.

I understand if you don’t like female characters, and that may be ‘valid’ to questioning Tomb Raider’s style games, but that is not enough to questioning a game like this, with one character of each gender.

indeed don't feed the troll.. I think he has mommy issues ^^

Will the male character be able to have any abilities you want him to have?
Will you be at any time forced to only play as a female character for the sake of story?

This game looks too good to pass up so if the answer to those questions is yes and no I will back it up.

I don't believe he is a troll, because people with similar views exist, and I know them in person.

EDIT:


You play as both characters all the time. What do you think happens when the combat starts? You actually play every party member. Every conversation can be argued as story based, and both characters can talk in those, if I'm not mistaken. They also said that the game isn't class restricted so I assume the male character can do whatever he wants, as well as the female character.

Also, judging by the OP, you don't seem to agree that this game is looking this good, especially since you made a post about your issue in the first place.

You CAN try and play through the game using only ONE character (this, in your case, obviously being the male). But good luck with that as you probably won't get very far in combat.

Which is why he has to play both characters, because apparently they're the only ones who can wield the Source. I mean he could try to just spam henchmen and summons instead of that female character, but I think it would be like playing half the game and not getting the full experience.

No need to fight - if the KS is successful we'll introduce gender recognition & so cater for man/man, man/woman, woman/woman. It will for sure add to our workload but that's why we're doing the Kickstarter. And we'll take care not to dumb things down. As a matter of fact, we're seeking exactly the opposite

Thanks for the clarification, Larian.

It's always good to have more freedom and options, but I wouldn't have a problem with playing with a male and a female character or even only with a female character in co-op.

Personally, I think it could hurt some other goals/intentions if you try to go away from the male-female combination of your original concept. I would prefer a dialogue system with NPCs that depend on whether the female or the male character is talking to a certain NPC. And I really fear that the overall story will suffer by breaking up the male-female combination.

So, please only allow other combinations in the game if it's not at the costs of other important parts of the game.

I agree 100%. I wish there was an upvote or like button.

This. So much this.

Of course, it would be great if the options do not mean this kind of counterpart... but if not, better to keep the original sin idea.

Will you change all the concept/production art as well? The story pitch? Posters? If the game has no really dedicated concept (which was literally the first thing that was published about the game- small story bits about these two and some art, IIRC - they made the first impression) anymore about two characters -- male and female -- following their quest and destiny - such kind of promotion seems one-sides and useless, why aren't you promoting two males instead? There always will be another Pikosil to complain about it too.

Here goes my hope for some ironical slightly-romance dialogues between these two or gender-related references/jokes. And even if they will be there every time I will be think it is the same for all genders (as much as I believe in you - I don't believe such amount of pssible writing and scripting and latter testing work for all custom genders with actual differences in dialogues work can be done till november, consider this si not the only thing that needs to be worked on). It is impossible to please everyone - wasn't that mention on Lar.net not so long ago?

No need to force the fairer sex on me, I dress up as a woman every night.

I must say I fully agree with Kein's opinion here !! (on his two posts in this topic)

Larians ? What's wrong with you all ? Drink more Dragon Beer and relax a day, let all the suggestions and ideas give more time to settle in your minds. Then new ideas will come up or disappear !
Please don't change the two protagonist's : male + female ! I like that idea so much !! Hope IF woman/womna or man/man is ONLY an OPTION I can make in the beginning starting a new game.
But I feel sad ... I better gonna play DD or DKS !

Please devs: better concentrate on other things to improve : humour, easter eggs, hidden things to discover, a good dialog-system and forget about just a few people complains about hating a male or female hero to play with ! Sorry to say, but you never can do make a RPG that everybody in the world wish to play, NEVER !! Don't try it, it's Mission Impossible !!

To be short :
Just BE the devs of Larian like you are since the time developing DD .

I thought the female/male protagonists would be fixed, too. But maybe the idea originally was to have multiple options but it wasn't possible due to budget/time constraints?

If the worst case scenario comes about(your scenario) and everything remains as it is I hope there won't be a forced romance. I just find it obnoxious and predictable.

Kein, I think you're worrying a bit much. There is no need for Larian to bother changing any conception/product art, or re-writing the Zandalor's diary journal entry.

I'm not sure if there will be much "flirting" dialogue between the party members before the ending is determined, and if there is places for that, it'll probably do a check for their personality profile compatibility anyway.




What do you think the co-operative dialogue system is for? It builds a personality profile of the characters and their values, and that will determine their relationship at the end.

I'm guessing the OP doesn't watch films with females in either or have anything to do with any media featuring females.

This OP has broken my immersion into this forum.

0/10

Personally, I consider the title of this topic quite inappropriate.

Why not "Forced males"?

Boobs.

Relax! Chill! Calm down!

We're not diluting anything - on the contrary. We have a very iterative culture at Larian & so it's not uncommon for us to change our minds all the way until the end. Drives people who work with us bananas but that's the way it is. I'm told it's not that uncommon in other successful studios, so maybe it'll even help us one day. The cool part of having an open mind to iteration is that we're open to new perspectives, and when this entire "you are sexists" thing started, our initial reaction was "now we're not & we don't agree with what you're saying & we think you actually have the definition of sexist wrong etc..." but... we figured that we were making a mistake in doing man/woman only because there really was no good reason to limit it to that. That's it.

As far as the equipment goes - I'll let our character artist reply to that. I had a long chat with him last night and realized to my shame that I had forgotten something which makes the entire thing quite funny. He'll tell the tale better than I can, so wait for him to pop in.

I'm looking forward to that.

I've no problems with an EXTRA option to play with man/man, woman/man or woman/woman, totally no problem with, on the contrary
I'm a male gamer and if the option is in, I probably try ALL different options and I very like playing with a female character ! (so nice to "look" at ! )

But I like most of playing man/woman because it seems to me more "balanced" in some way ... just my opinion

Edit:
Of course : this EXTRA option can improve the replayability

On the issue of genders ... a little side quest idea:

The teleporter incident

A classic. She touches a pyramid, he touches the same pyramid. Through some unforeseen disturbance in the pattern (strong magic currents nearby), their bodies switch after the teleporting. Player A now controls the character of Player B and vice versa. Quest outline: get your own body back.


Might need to implement safeguards against abuse like destroying items etc, but it could be fun for a time if you play Co-Op with a friend -- don't know if it would make sense in single player, but I guess in that case a simple forced personality switch instead of body switch could do the trick where applicable.

Hahah! That's pretty creative, actually. As I was reading through it I was thinking that the two characters would morph into one grotesque mutant lmao.

I think that wouldn't work so well, actually. Maybe in a less free-form RPG, where you were restricted in what you could do.

Fun !

Or make from this an easter egg?

Hum. What-ever happens lets please be gentle and remember to have fun and if we have to express a dislike do so gently and softly and if the developers can they will try to accommodate but if in the end they cannot then understand that maybe it just didn't work out this time but it might next time.
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I (my preference not nec yours) rather have a game with a guy and a gal and lots of subtle humour then have the developers allow for guy/guy, gal/gal and see the humour lost (naturally the best of the world is to keep the humour and please the people but sometimes it just doesnt' happen). Also if you get guy/guy but one of the guys have to wear a skirt because they don't have time to change the skirt into another pair of pants will you be upset ?

Same here, lol

Classic, altho without actual voiceover it won't be so funny. Btw, this can be done via Editor as custom quest.

This is the whole argument for an entire game! It will be even better with a complex quest and it will be more funny if they have also their gender changed: the man explored “him(her)self” while girl is yelling to him “Do not touch my body, pervert!!!” hehe!

If the game had only 1 character and you would have to fully emerge into that one character.. like nowadays mmorpg's etc.. and if you then dont have the choice to be a man instead of a woman.. sure.. i would hate it.

But at an actionrpg like this? thats like hating having a female in your party at final fantasy..
tbh i could not care less :P

Just leave the woman behind if you are really really hating it.. but i really cant find a reason why having a female in your party would be a big problem..

and thats coming from someone who actually returned some free max level characters i got in WoW (long time ago.. quit with that already) because they were female and i simply could not play them :P

I feel like posting in this thread is now rather redundant. The following says all I need to know for the time being...

So does this mean that the game cover will be changed or will the man/woman playthrough be considered "canon"?

I think the existing game cover ( or a version with a slightly more clothed Scarlett) is fine.

Doesn't anyone remember the cover-art of the first game?



Wasn't a problem back then.

I think part of the reason why it’s becoming more of a big deal is because of stuff like this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games
Just proposing this project kicked off a huge firestorm of misogyny for inexplicable, stupid reasons.

“It’s always been done like that before.” Is a really weak argument. Well, if the straight guy thinks the treatment of women is okay, then I guess there’s no problem! (Spoiler: I am also a straight guy.)

Gaming has really treated women as afterthoughts, only good for sexy cover art and such for a long time. The demographics of game players have changed from “almost entirely men”. The percentage of gamers who are women are close to 50% by now, but the marketing hasn’t caught up.

Larian has been okay in terms of gender roles before. In Divine Divinity, General Alix was head of the Ducal army, 3/5 of the Black Ring bosses were women. In Divinity 2 Rhode was the most powerful Dragon Slayer, some of the Black Ring generals were women, the final boss was a woman. But there are also questionable things too. Look at this interview about Dragon Commander.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UBGtRTjIT6Y#t=807s
Catherine is a general, who used to be a former queen. She is described as a feminist, a champion for equal gender rights... and her concept art, she’s wearing skintight leather with a goddamn cleavage window. Come on, now.

Me, personally, I don’t mind the Original Sin box art. Maybe I’m part of the problem too. But do you know what? I would buy that game even if the box art had her in unflattering plate mail. There have been several comments along the lines, “I know someone who REFUSES to buy the game because of the girl’s ridiculous outfit.” I have no problem if Larian changes the box art to make her outfit look more combat-practical, especially if that means it will get more people to buy the game (and support the Kickstarter).

Do YOU have any GOOD reasons why not to change the art?

Update in KS. You can play as man/man, woman/woman, man/woman.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin/posts/447872#comments

I would buy the game even if they used a naked woman as boxart XD

or maybe that would be the reason to buy it..

uhm.. anyway :P

nice to hear they are giving everyone the options they want

I shall be playing woman/woman.

AWWWWWW yeah!

It's cover art, I mean, men in games also always look like bloody Adonises able to lift a truck with one hand as well (but I'm sure the female audience doesn't mind), even Wizards who supposedly are fantasy's basement dwelling nerds. The difference being that all us skinny geeks just shrug and move on instead of getting all riled up.

As long as the actual in game armours are functional (as they were in D2 at least) and the actual character dialogues are good (which they were in D2) I really am not that bothered about the cover art, though yes, the thought had crossed my mind when I first saw it (but then the dysfunctionally "exposed" armors for women have always bothered me).

I am also probably odd in the sense that I'd probably find her more attractive if she were wearing "real" armor (in that sense the cover probably doesn't have the desired effect on me ).

Jesus Christ, dude, don't you see? Are you blind? That picture is full of sexism and misogyny, how do you even dare to post that? Every picture with implaied and arguable sexualization for the sake of actual sexualization is a no-no now. Erotic and artistic nudity forbidden too. Because sexism and misogyny. You aren't sexist and mysoginist, are you? Huh, huh?!

1. No it's not. I'm not here to argue the moral rights and wrongs but sales for games with a woman showing her cleavage on the front cover have always been dependent on the advertising and whether one likes what they see of the gameplay just like with all games. It's irrelevant IMO. Several people might boycott the game but everyone else will buy it anyway.

2. Part of Larian's humor if you ask me. Meanwhile if you look at the concept art for men there are several (in both DC and Original Sin) who have their bare chests showing. If the women showing cleavage are for men then the men showing their muscly hairy torsos are for women.

3. It looks good and aesthetic design shouldn't be sacrificed because some people can't handle a bit of skin. That is the woman's default armor in the game and I don't see anything sexual with it asides from the cleavage showing.

If you have ever read a woman's fashion magazine or at least opened one then you'll see that revealing female attire isn't just in the mind of men.

If it was a half-naked man on the front cover we wouldn't be hearing any outrage.

Again I'm not arguing for the moral rights or wrongs of revealing clothing but I see nothing sexual about the cover-art. I see a man and a woman holding hands and the woman isn't striking a sexual pose. I guess the real problem is with the cleavage showing but to think that that would stop people from buying the game is wrong if you ask me. The majority will decide based on the merits of the gameplay itself.

Real feminists in medieval fantasy times know that a girl in armor will be laughed at by the real men.. While a barely dressed woman will have a way easier time convincing her allies and confusing her foes...

Woman arent stupid (well.... I have to agree alot of humanity has become horribly stupid in the last 15 years) and know how to use their strong sides for the best..
Just saying.. The chick with the tight armor will probably cut you in half while you are staring at her armor and the one with the massive plate set will probably be pushed in a river as a joke and drown

From the guild wars series to world of warcraft, from divine divinity to d&d ... Every single game that exsists has this kinda stuff.. So welcome to the internet

Is it dumb of people to judge the game just based on the cover? Yes it is.

Dumb people exist. Their money is as good as anyone else's. If they really would buy the game if the cover was changed in that really small way, then change the cover and laugh to the bank with their money in your hand.

If Larian changes it, suddenly they'll seem more responsive and enlightened - that's good publicity.


2. I have no idea what "Part of Larian's humor if you ask me" is referring to or what it means. Do you mean the Dragon Commander feminist with the dominatrix catsuit (with boob window!)?


3. It looks good to you. To other people, it looks stupid because the guy is in sensible monster-fighting armor and the girl's guts are protected only by bare skin. It may not be overly sexual, but it's impractical for no purpose.

As for the asethetic, I do like that aesthetic, and I am fully confident that the artist who made that great cover can manage to add clothing without ruining the entire thing.

@TimeRaider

She can "cut me in half" any day of the week.





1. Cater to them and Larian might as well cater to all the minorities raising minor complaints.

2. The fact that she's a feminist and highly sexualised.

3. By default she's not a warrior though and is always shown with a bow. By this point her "armor" does become practical as it allows for faster movement and mobility. I suppose you could argue "put in her leather armor then" which is valid.

Since her default build is with the bow I don't think her armor is impractical although the cleavage show is unnecessary. The cover art is meant to show the default characters (like Mass Effect shows the default Shepard despite the fact you can create your own of either gender).

She's not striking any sexual poses. I think the real problem is the cleavage display.

But I don't care either way about what Larian do. I just think the complaint is an over-exaggeration.

And to clear things up. I prefer practical armor on both male and female characters but I don't have a problem with the woman's current armor. It's not highly sexualised. It's the eastern fantasy female armor I have a problem with.

No, that is just the concept art; the armour in the game is realistic.

I don't see the image as sexist, it's just silly. If arms, legs and stomach are going to be uncovered, then there isn't much point of the gauntlets and shoulder pad.

This is actually a great idea for an item. Cloak of seducing - +x to initiative, yx% chance for enemy to miss an atack.

Hey... this is actually a pretty good idea

+x initiative, because there is a bigger chance to strike first while enemy is seduced with your apperance, and yx% chance for enemy to miss because they are constantly obstructed with your sexy look

Lord, did someone just post a link to Anita Sarkeesian? Burn it with fire.

1. It's true that there are all kinds of unreasonable complaints that Larian shouldn't bother catering to. I don't think that putting both genders in costumes that have the same level of practicality is so incredibly unreasonable.


2. Yeah... I guess I can kinda see that. Producing a strange reaction by giving her arguments that feminists can wholeheartedly agree with, and an over-the-top outfit that sends a much different message.


3. That argument has no merit. As far as I can tell, they should both start out with identical stats and be built in any way you want. Yes, for the demos Larian is giving her the bow, but a player could easily make her the melee tank with a 2H-Battleaxe and tons more HP than the guy.

Can we at least agree that the fact that her only protection is a shoulder pad and battle bra is ridiculous. Bad guys can shoot arrows too!

You guys have problems, omg.... :P

My Husband pretty much picks female characters 50% of the time given choice and I find that quite normal. I tend to pick female 90% of the time...used to pick male more often but I just feel comfortable and identify more as female physically. I think gender is just an identification with physical form which is a perceptual construct....remove your brain/consciousness from the body and put it into a body of the opposite gender for a period and you'd start to identify with that form given time. I think if you have only to control one character it should be roleplayable for you as you are very identified with the male physical form.

I think Divinity 2 was not sexist...no metal bikinis and the armors were lovely. I do find a lot of games ignore female players completely though or overlook them. Recently playing one there was an option for marriage. Lots of attractive female npc's were available and about 3 old men so it was become a lesbian or go for a father figure ;-)

I like the Divine Divinity coverart and dislike the Original Sin coverart. Make of that what you will...

1. Well Larian are fine with it. If they are fine with it then they shouldn't change the cover-art because a handful of people dislike it. Well that's what I think of that. I know you disagree.

3. That's true and I'm not arguing against that, I'm just saying that I'm thinking that upon starting the game, the male would automatically be a warrior and the female will be a ranger in the character creation menu as that's how they've been shown so far in both gameplay, screen shots and concept art hence why I'm saying that that there's "default builds".

Yes the armor is ridiculous.

But in any case. You make fine points and I see little reason to continue here. Of course you're free to add to your argument. For me I agree the armor is ridiculous but it's not highly sexual so the current art is not a problem for me.

From what we've been told about character creation, everyone starts out the same and you made all the decisions about who does what. At best, there would be a thing like "New Game: Flames of Vengeance" where there were class buttons to give you presets to use or alter. There won't be any such thing as "automatically" or "by default".

I think I'll leave it here as well.

is this thread run by americans or fundamental islamists?

Like I said. Kill it fire.

I had renewed faith in the studio when I saw the vid "kickstarter update 02: review meeting". If the game is passing through that kind of critique, well, you got me convinced.

Back to the main topic, just a feedback:
When I first saw the poster, a specific couple walking hand by hand, I already imagined a specialized, deep story line. I thought, "locked and specific characters, but hey, since they're specific maybe the story is more engaging and deep." That is the impression I got when I looked at the poster. I even expected some intense dialogue between the couple (man/woman) as they go about their adventure. IMO the poster itself already sold a specific idea to the customer. You got them holding hands, a customer might also expect the story arc to revolve around, say... love?

If you got a poster that elicits that expectation you better be sure to deliver it.

The quote above doesn't stop there does it? We have gender combinations and class combinations. Essentially, you're aiming for a module without pre-generated characters.

Actually, I got a different impression from the poster. Their expressions were those of determination, not happiness or bliss. The fact that they were holding hands showed that there was an iron bond between them - but not necessarily a bond of love. I actually found the juxtaposition of the hand-holding (which usually indicates romance) with the faces that showed no romance to be a very interesting combination.

It suggested that romance could possibly develop, but the most important thing was that these two people would take on the challenges ahead together.

I understand your point; in fact, I never thought myself of romance in Original Sin by seeing the poster (maybe because it's something I don't relate with Divinity games).

But... I also understand why people could expect romance from the poster. And I'm not sure if this is good for Larian, because romance in RPGs have the Bioware "touch" on them, and if people are expecting something like this... maybe they will suffer some disappointment -even more with the confirmed free sex customization of the couple-.

I'm not saying Larian is not capable of doing good romances, but I simply think that is not something they are very interested in. As for me, I would appreciate an approach to it in the Baldur's Gate 2 fashion -romances were there, but not as important as in later Bioware games-.

I'm curious, though, about how Larian would treat same sex romances, if the opportunity arises...

lol at the thought of happiness or bliss. The dialogue system where your partner can disagree with you may lead to a bumpy road ahead.

As a female gamer, this thread is giving me a headache...

As a male gamer, I said "dafuq"

If playing a girl in a video game repulse you because it breaks immersion, just think about a girl wanting to play games. She sure has great immersion playing Kratos getting a threesome.

Video games tells a story. If you refuse to play the sorceress in diablo II for immersion reason, man.... chill out. You get your turn with baldy guys, give the chance to the girls to get the same. And that doesn't mean the game will be bad.

The way you say it, it's pure sexism

hahaha I had the same reaction as you Ikalios. I love the idea of women playing videogames before character creation was a thing...poor them . Of course, most people don't run into this psychological block. I also love the image of him getting immersed by playing characters that look like something he would probably never be able to pull off..not a personal attack, but a comment on how ridiculous some characters can look. I mean, if you can do this, what is the issue with getting into a female character? Is it just the potential to have kids that throws you off? I am playing in my head with all the implications that this type of "immersion" entails...it's incredibly hilarious.

I guess I take more stories from a third person point of view..I don't become the character, I see the story from the point of view of a creepy ghost following the character.

Personally, I tend to always choose female characters because they generally look less bulky than the male characters...Or, in the case of Soul Caliber, the male characters look plain ridiculous.

This forum has introduced me to some really new concerns people have over videogames.

Quite dumb concerns. Thanks to these people games like Catherine (or in similar concept) may never exist again. They see sexism in everything. Even where it is exact the damn point and idea.